Born in Armidale, New South Wales, she was brought up on a sheep farm, and educated at Sydney University. She travelled in Great Britain and Europe before returning to Sydney (1938-39) to concentrate on her writing. The Moving Image (1946) was her first collection, after which she was an industrious poet, critic, anthologist, editor and short-story writer. Her main volumes of poetry are Woman to Man (1949), The Gateway (1953), The Two Fires (1955), Birds (1962), City Sunrise (1964), The Other Half (1966), Alive (1973) and Fourth Quarter and Other Poems (1976). Her Collected Poems 1942-1970 and Collected Poems 1942-1987 were published in 1971 and 1994 respectively. The Cry for the Dead (1981) is about the impact of European immigration on the Aboriginal people, and a collection of essays on Aboriginal culture, Born of the Conquerors, was published in 1991. She edited the Oxford anthology, A Book of Australian Verse, in 1956 and has written on Charles Harpur (1813-68) and Henry Lawson. In 1993 she became the first Australian to receive the Queen's Medal for poetry.